Veronica Ng, Jean Kian (School of Architecture, Building and Design, Taylor's University, MALAYSIA).
Disciplinary: Architecture Science and City Planning.
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doi: 10.14456/ITJEMAST.2021.29
Keywords: Petaling Street; Pedestrianised street; Social space; Public space; Asian street; Place identity; Street liveability.
Abstract
The changing streetscape of Malaysian cities is a reason to conduct a study on liveability and place identity. However, these studies tend to isolate social space investigations to either ecological environments or persons' psychology. This research takes Petaling Street as a case study to investigate its socio-spatial dimensions. It scrutinises prior and current socio-spatial theories for urban field analysis which are largely Western-centric and may not relate to Asian spaces. Therefore, it seeks to fill a research gap by analysing an Asian pedestrianised street based on an integrated framework of prior and current socio-spatial perspectives. This study adopts a case study research method for the advantage of being able to focus on the embeddedness of the case in the context of society and space. The research objectives were answered using thematic analysis on secondary data of socio-spatial concepts in urban field studies, and a short ethnographic study of Petaling Street. This research finds significance in documenting an Asian pedestrianised street, scrutinising Western-centric concepts' applicability onto an Asian street, and expanding upon existing Malaysian public life and space studies. Findings reveal eight key socio-spatial attributes public life and space that define a pedestrianised Asian street and the challenges of adopting a single socio-spatial perspective in urban field analysis.
Paper ID: 12A2H
Cite this article:
Ng, V., Kian, J. (2021). Public Life and Space of Petaling Street: Reading the Mutable Street from Socio-Spatial Perspectives. International Transaction Journal of Engineering, Management, & Applied Sciences & Technologies, 12(2), 12A2H, 1-14. http://doi.org/10.14456/ITJEMAST.2021.29